Imaging tests like mammograms or CT scans can detect tumors, but figuring out whether a growth is or isn't cancer usually requires a biopsy to study cells directly. Now results of a Johns Hopkins study suggest ...

Genetic defects affecting tiny channels in human nerve cells lead to several neurological diseases that result from aberrant nerve transmission, such as episodic ataxia, absence epilepsy, and migraines. These ...

Scientists at the Salk Institute have discovered a powerful one-two punch for countering a common genetic mutation that often leads to drug-resistant cancers. The dual-drug therapy—with analogs already ...

It may look like fresh blood and flow like fresh blood, but the longer blood is stored, the less it can carry oxygen into the tiny microcapillaries of the body, says a new study from University of Illinois ...

A team of researchers led by David J. Mooney, Robert P. Pinkas Family Professor of Bioengineering at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, have identified a possible mechanism by which normal ...

Researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute have identified a heart-specific form of a protein, BIN1, responsible for sculpting tiny folds in pockets that are present on the surface of heart muscle cells. ...

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have discovered a genetic risk factor for premature birth. The risk factor is related to a gene that codes for a protein that the ...

The cancer protein KRas is a factor in the development of several types of cancer. Mutated KRas, for example, can be found in a large number of all tumour cells in patients with pancreatic cancer. It sits ...

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have discovered that a substance called Vacquinol-1 makes cells from glioblastoma, the most aggressive type of brain tumour, literally explode. When mice were ...

For many inherited diseases, such as cystic fibrosis or Huntington disease, the disease-causing genetic mutation damages or removes a protein that has an essential role in the body. This protein defect is ...

(Medical Xpress)—To move material in bulk, the standard shipping container used by cells, is the vesicle. These approximately 40-micron sized spheres are essentially recyclable grocery bags that can be ...

(Medical Xpress)—The blood-brain barrier (BBB) prevents most large or hydrophilic (polar) molecules from getting into the brain. For many neurological diseases, like Parkinson's, the presence of the BBB ...

Cell membrane

The cell membrane (also called the plasma membrane or plasmalemma) is the biological membrane separating the interior of a cell from the outside environment.

It is a semipermeable lipid bilayer found in all cells. It contains a wide variety of biological molecules, primarily proteins and lipids, which are involved in a vast array of cellular processes such as cell adhesion, ion channel conductance and cell signaling. The plasma membrane also serves as the attachment point for both the intracellular cytoskeleton and, if present, the extracellular cell wall.